


There is no patience in my system, I don't have any left

by RKaoriL



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Angst, Based on fancomic, Fantastic Racism, It's necessary to read nicolaswildes comic to understand, Jail (zoo), Multi, Other, Overall Fucked up World, Solitary Confinement, TW: Graphic Descriptions of Electroshocks, TW: Mental Instability, TW: Post-Traumatic Stress, TW: Solitary Confinement, Zistopia AU, angsty as fuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 15:43:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8584171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RKaoriL/pseuds/RKaoriL
Summary: I wonder what would have happened if that man didn't die,Would I still be here in jail burning on the inside?//Starts when Nick goes to the zoo. Finishes when Nick is out//





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Zistopia, the racist animal hell AU](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/241972) by nicolaswildes. 



> I believe that for further understanding of this work, you will have to read nicolaswildes' comic Zistopia Au at http://zistopia.com or their blog (http://nicolaswildes.tumblr.com/tagged/Zistopia-AU/chrono). This work is not only heavily inspired by the comic, but completely based in it. THAT SAID, the characters, locations and situations here are all based in nicolaswildes' design and I do not own them.
> 
> The title of this work, the summary and its chapter titles are taken from Nicholas S. poetry, Burning on the Inside. You can read it here: http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2016/05/17/instead-of-jail-dispatches-from-the-inside-2/
> 
> For the development of this work, I made LOTS of research. Geez, it was supposed to be an one-shot, but as I'd increase the contents quality it just got longer.
> 
> If you got the time, I'd be very thankful if you would consider feedbacking me at my tumblr (http://rkaori.tumblr.com/ask) or simply leaving a comment.
> 
> Ch. 1 tumblr url: http://rkaoril.tumblr.com/post/153326929708/there-is-no-patience-in-my-system-i-dont-have

The gates were opened with a deafening sound - rusted iron collapsing against itself: engines that lack lubrication and a doorman that lacks patience.

Nick was kicked ahead by one of the officers behind him. His frown could be seen from behind, he thought, and walked ahead. Mammals - all predators - were chained to him in line through heavy steel. They all had ball and chains attached to their ankles. An otter, the first of the line, laughed sterically, completely nuts; the madness was such his collar still kept its green light, despite the agitation.

Part of Nick - not a small one - wished he had already reached that level of insanity.

The walk to the inner part of the Zoo doesn't mark Nick at all. He was aware that he would _stay_ , and would have all the time in the world to memorize those boring brick walls and stones in the floor. The insides stroke him, through, with it's colorless features: gray, gray and gray. Not a single droplet of yellow or orange or any other color.

The zoo is separated in floors. The first floor is some kind of “reception”: nursery, visitors and red tape offices all take place there. Nick and the other new inmates were examined, had their collars checked, and were greeted with the most motivational ‘welcome to hell’ quote some stupid officer sang to them.

The midsection floors would be for usual and non-violent (of sorts) inmates: those to cheated collars, protested, stole, yelled at some ridiculous pray that sued them for no reason would end up there. Those who overused drugs or somehow were selling them would be there too - unfeeling mammals, who had no light in their eyes and smelled terribly of detergent and yasmin.

The higher floors are the maximum security: violent psycho killers, protesters who overdid their display of insatisfaction with the government, dudes who managed to cheat collars for good and will soon die of unexplained causes. Nick didn't know much about that place. He knew that it’s hopeless, but every time he was assigned to clean the corridors and bathrooms of that stinking piece of hell he looked for the red fur and brilliant eyes of a long-gone taylor.

Nick, at first, takes everything as a personal joke only he could understand - fuck that he couldn’t get up from the bed during the night and run around to pace his nocturnal habits. Fuck that he couldn’t go to the bathroom when he felt like it. Fuck that the food was awful awful _awful_ and tastes like if a pig bathed in it. Fuck the fact that he couldn't see the sky,couldn't listen to records, couldn't breathe, couldn't sleep, couldn't _eat_...

(He tried once to get a vegetarian option in the dining hall, it was useless.)

The first days pass Nick as if they were trucks and he was hitchhiking: he is kicked out of bed too soon, forced to eat, forced to work, forced to clean, forced to answer all kinds of ridiculous questions to a doctor of some sorts, forced to bath, forced to undress and display all his belongings (they weren't much, Nick had no idea of how one could actually hide anything threatening for the officers or other inmates with such narrowed possibilities) so he could be inspected, forced to stand in a line in front of the cell for counting, forced to lay down to sleep again.

In these days, Nick's emptiness is such his collar doesn't even reaches yellow light - a rare situation, considering Nick's usual outbursts of emotions. He decides that he has truly became the ideal predator: locked up, emotionless and automatic, such as a robot.

He was aware, somehow, that the world was still turning outside those rusted gates: people randomly would call him from the outside, and those were the most exhausting of all things. Honey, mostly, is the one to call him. She talked and talked and talked, and expected replies and answers, and had this vivid, vivid way of saying things that is mostly ridiculous. _She can't even leave her own house, she was locked like Nick, destroyed like Nick, damaged like Nick, and yet she had all the energy to call and..._

Nick told her to not call him again. He told her to forget about him, he's gonna die in this place anyway. Honey ignores that and keeps calling, keeps draining Nick's energy reserves and he couldn't keep himself from answering her every single time.

__

 

Halfway his second month, a mammal showed up in his cell - he was a cougar, as chained as Nick, and held something in his paws. His fur was ruffled, missing in some points of his shoulders and head and accompanied to distinct scars. He spoke, Nick did not pay attention - or at least, did not demonstrate any. Instead, he stared at the holes and imperfections in the wall next to his bed, pretending to not listen as the other predator spoke.

"Mr. Wilde, I’m sure you’ve heard about it before, but you have no idea of the change you made for me and my daughter" said the mammal. His voice and mannerisms were such that if Nick could ignore all those follicles missing, the cougar could be considered educated and polished. Nick inhaled, slowly "since she was first collared, she had all types of… situations. She has ADHD, you see, the only way to avoid constant shocks would be constant medication, and it completely set her off. She would stare at the nothing, completely vegetable for days straight."

The cougar inhaled deeply, almost wiping. Nick couldn't give himself the privilege of accepting those words, so instead, he leaned his head against the cold wall and closed his eyes. Nick was aware that all the eyes of his cellmates were in him - most pretended that they are simply bored with the commotion, but some let looks of admiration and respect occupy their muzzles. Nick decided to ignore it all.

"We took her to Wild Times." the cougar said, after recomposing himself "It was hard. We had to wait until the drugs left her system entirely. She was so happy, you have no idea. You made a beautiful thing, I hope you are aware."

The silence saturates the sell completely, and Nick uses all of his remaining strength to not look at the mammal in the eye and tell him that _it could have been your daughter. Your wife. They could be dead, and it would have been my fault as well._

"I'm sorry" said the cougar, his voice lacked the previous emotion - nostalgic melancholy - and was replaced with comprehension and sympathy: both things that Nick didn't deserve. Part of him wanted to believe that the cougar understood his fake lack of empathy, his guilty, but the other part didn't even care. After a few more moments of silence and the alarm of the curfew pounds, the other predator finally left Nick’s cell for his own, but not before placing the sheet of paper that he brought in Nick’s bed.

After what seems like eternity, Nick reached through the dark after the ends of his mattress, looking for the sheet of paper.

Even through the nights were badly illuminated by a pulsing yellow light in the other side of the corridor, Nick wouldn't be able to distinguish its content if it wasn't for his night vision - the whole thing was colored as if a liquidizer had a pencil. But he did, and he recognized Wild Times and its lights, and its attractions, and even Finnick dressed as a sheep being chased by a baby cougar in a dress.

His grip in the the paper crumpled it, destroyed it. The fox felt like ripping it to pieces, ripping everything and everyone into pieces. It felt like if everything was exploding, as if the broken pieces of his mind were collapsing against each other and flicking sparks from the collision.

Nick was aware that the previously steady, boring beat of his heart was now hammering against his lungs and ribcage, as if the organ was tired of all the shit Nick put it through and decided to quit, smashing against its walls so it could finally break free.

He was not prepared for the landslide of emotions or the electric current that enters his body through the neck, rocks his brain inside his skull and burns, burns, _burns_ as if he wasn’t already in hell. Somewhere in between zaps he fell from the bed, collapsed against the cold floor. As if he wasn’t already having a hard time trying to breathe, the air was knocked out of his lungs with the fall. This stopped the zaps, for the time being, and Nick stared at the dirty ceiling in a numb, suffocating haze.

Nick struggled for air on the ground, not quite trying, but because his body was biologically set for surviving. He yelped as his lungs fought for air and was half-aware of the commotion of his previously asleep cellmates - they hit the bars of the cell constantly, providing the metallic sounds that were ringing against his ears and hitting his head as baseball bats.

After a few more seconds of struggle - it felt as if an elephant decided that Nick’s chest was a nice seat - he was finally able to breathe. The air hit his lungs violently, and he was now drowning backwards.

His body was still tingling and trembling when the next electric wave started.

This time, not only was he burning on the surface, but it also felt like a metallic ball entered his body through his neck and decided to make a pinball machine out of it. He looked at the ceiling before his eyes averted to the insides of his head, and considered that if him, Nicholas P. Wilde, was to be zapped to death this dark room, right now, he couldn't give a fuck.

His cellmates, not giving up so easily, awoke the whole floor. They were euphoric, erratic, some were being lightly zapped as they scream, yell, growl, roar. Most of them didn’t really care about the inmate being zapped to death in the floor, but he was an icon - for himself and through association. He was Nick Wilde, son of John the Honest, and these two generations of the same family did more for predators than all the prisoners of this wing combined.

So with a little effort of Nick’s cellmates, the whole floor joined them.

Eventually, the officers decided that it wasn't a good idea to let one of their inmates be electrocuted to death in the middle of the night as the whole 3rd floor makes a massive attempt at prison riot. Quickly all their collars were emanating electro-shocks, shutting the floor up for no sound besides the electric buzz. Officers opened the cell as it happened and took Nick’s collar off to drag him out.

Nick was so groggy that he couldn't barely walk or concentrate in anything besides the metallic taste in his mouth. The haze was such that two officers were forced to take him through his arms to change his whereabouts, so they dragged him violently with their armes intertwined with Nick's, passing through the corridors, stairs and finally the undergrounds of the prison.

It’s too late when Nick finally regains enough consciousness to understand that he is going to be locked up in the _solitary_. The knownledge triggered his desperation, as if he had really reverted to his “savage ways”, and he kicked, fought, as much as he could, as much as mammally possible, making sure that his little collar-less time was going to be worth it.

All the efforts were useless. The officers immobilized the inmate on the floor and put his collar on again, just to throw him aggressively in the room that he would habitate for only God knows how long.

___

 

At first, the cold concrete floor Nick is thrown at felt inviting: his insides were burning like if he had a fever, making any external cold source welcome. He laid on the ground, eyes closed, listened to the door as it was slammed and inhaled slowly, pretending momentarily that he was not going through a mental breakdown.

After a few minutes later - enough for Nick’s body warmth heaten the floor underneath him - Nick perceived his whereabouts, hardly.

The first thing that stroke him was the smell - filthy, disgusting, acid. It burned through his sensitive nostrils like wildfire, spreading numbness and agony all the way to his brain. As far as Nick was aware, somebody might have died in that place (right after suffering a diarrhea).

Next is the sound - a distinct buzz of electricity that hummed in the distance, followed by the unsteady beat of something against the wall. Now and then, Nick would hear a light weep, nearby, but it was so quick and so low he couldn't be sure if it was real or just a product of his mind.

Nick stood up. In the meantime, his bones had probably converted to plastic, now bending where they should stand. The excruciating taste of metal lingered in Nick’s mouth. When he opened his eyes to perceive the room, the fluorescent light above his head nearly blinded him.

 _It's a square_ \- is the first thing Nick can think about. Part of him wanted to crack a joke to the walls, laugh sterically like a madfox and see the nonexistent sunshine in the situation. He could touch the dirty walls and laugh at the dirty sink disposed to him - it probably hasn’t drinking water - and laugh at the stone provided for sleeping, laugh at the blinding fluorescent light above his eyes.

Would his father approve a massive, sterical, insane laugh in the depths of the solitary? Would he rather Nick to stay sane and hate this world with massive anger instead?

Nick decided to lock up his still fucked up emotions and contradictory doubts. He wasn't wise, but he was at least smart enough to know that if he allowed himself to try sort out the mess that was his head, the solitary was the last place to have an internal monologue about oneself feelings.

The insides are a mirror of Nick’s mental situation: gray, filthy, stained and not quite making sense. One could listen to pathetic whimpers in the distance.

Nick inhaled - through his mouth, he wasn't sure if it was better than through his nose - and tried to tame the demons inside himself. He walked slowly towards the concrete, mattressless furniture in the counter of the room, laid down with his torso towards the ceiling and stared at the emptiness.

 

___

 

In the solitary, the perception of time was abstract. The closest thing to a clock was the beating Nick can hear in the distance - it happened with mechanical precision at each 5 seconds, as if a pendulum were right next to a wall.

Nick paced himself walking around the run like a madfox - he knows that he should somehow tire himself out, otherwise the sleep would come and go as pleased, making his head and biological clock go nuts.

The first time meals are handed to him through the hatch in the metallic door, it is slam so violently that the tray’s contents are knocked out of it and wasted in the dirty floor. Nick protested, slamming his paws against the door and yelling at the irresponsibility of the officers, but his only awards were muffled laughs outside the room and a quick zap in his neck.

The next day - or more precisely, after the 17280th beat against the wall Nick heard - the meals were, again, slammed against the hatch aggressively and the tray’s contents were wasted.

Nick tried to protest again against this ridiculousness, but his only outcomes are mockery laughs and electroshocks, _again_. Saving a few bread slices here and there seemed to be the only option, even when the looks of the ground alone were enough to make Nick nauseated. But in the end, luxury is not something Nick possesses - he can’t be that much picky when his resources are so limited.

Even if the food were not violently wasted, being in the solitary was not a walk in the park: in the communal place for the regular prisoners, Nick could haunt the walls and corridors and beds and cells as much as any of the other inmates and their troubles souls, and he would still somehow feel that he was living in a world of mammals, inhabited and populated and run by mammals. Nick could rejoice in his loneliness as much as he wanted in the intermediary floors, but he still would see and talk and interact with at a dozen of mammals until the end of the day.

The solitary was entirely seclusion. He could go through with the constant beat and the meals slammed against his door and he would still feel like he was alone in the universe, accompanied only by the fluorescent light above his head and himself.

It could be peaceful, at some extent, but as much as foxes would like to call themselves loners, they were still inherently social animals. Nick’s head was floating with thoughts and repressed emotions that felt like physical entities, crowding his head and making it full, preventing the engines inside his brain of functioning properly. 

“I wish I had at least a broom or something.” Nick said, as he tried to use the scrap of fabric he found besides the ‘bed’ to rub the dirty floor next to the door, where the food was wasted “If they were to expect me to live in this hellhole and would throw all the food at the floor, they could _at least_ provide me a broom. Maybe a mop. A bucket with water? Fuck, I really wanted some water.”

Indeed, Nick felt like he had been caught in the rain, but instead of water, dry dirt had fell from the sky. His haunches’ fingers, armpits and legs would rub against each other, iching with all the filth one could feel in oneself. Nick could kill for a proper bath, or even for the ridiculous gutter falling from a prehistoric shower the zoo provided for its regular inmates.

As the time passed, as the mechanical beats hit Nick’s ears, he felt each time less mammal, each time less of a thinking being.

When the food was wasted through the door for the third time, Nick couldn’t help it - fuck the pride and the self-respect (if he ever had any of it), it was surviving of the fittest! He licked the food out of the dirty floor, as distasteful and unsanitary it was. When he finished, Nick looked down at the still dirty-looking floor covered in mysterious stains and his own saliva, and the weak glow it reflected somehow felt like slaps against his muzzle, as if the fluorescent light in the ceiling reflected to Nick’s saliva was the physical manifestation of all the oppression Nick had faced until them.

 _Look how uncivilized the fox is! -_ someone said, as if a bunch of prey were following a particular prison guide - _He will eat the dirty, will lick the floor and our feet!_

_He will try to outsmart us, the foolishness!_

_He’s just a collared predator!_

_He’ll beg for forgiveness, he wrapped around our twinkies!_

_He’s just a savage, uneducated, he’s the scum!_

_Stinky, disgusting chomper!_

Nick fell to his knees, throwed his head back and released a excruciatingly loud laugh. It crashed against his throat as its savagery seemed to rip the flesh apart.

He laughed again, snorted, felt as his belly contracted with the quivers of the emotion. He’s out of his own control when the collar shocks him, and then he is lying in the floor, staring at the fluorescent light as it stained his vision.

The zaps stopped the outrageous laugh in the middle, exposing to Nick the void of the emotion. He was empty inside, like he had been before, but this time was worse - the knocks against a wall, the fluorescent light, the loneliness of the solitary all seem light loud noise in his head - like a buzz of electricity each time louder, each time less bearable, until his eyes are full of tears and his head feels like _exploding, like his brains are ripping apart his head and scattering itself through the floor in blood and tar, providing whatever officers that enter the room a very colorful physical display of the war inside him..._

He wakes up covered in his own sweat, and if feels like if his entire body is made of hard and painful stone.

 

___

 

“It will be so AWESOME!” Nick shouted, without a target in particular “I can’t wait to see them all again!”

As he walked from one side to the other of the room, his eyes were looking everywhere. They weren't really taking in the view, but instead, his mind was clouding his perceptions.

_Honey’s bunker is displayed to him, as well as the completely tidiness of the place: the perks of not leaving your house is having plenty of time and dedication to organize it with all the tenderness in the world. Nick can nearly feel the rough texture of the crochet sheath of her dish towels and tablecloth, made with the love of someone who cares about their belongings._

Despite how _fantastic_ it all was, Nick still allowed himself to hope to see it all again, feeling all again, like if humor couldn’t keep it with being his only coping mechanism.

_Nick can feel the sweetness of the honey jars she stores, as well as the amazing cornbread she does when he can convince her to bake when all she has beside honey for the dinner is old cereal. The perks of being a vegetarian fox._

_He can also feel the fluffiness of Ben’s fur when the cheetah would be off the medication haze enough for the energetic hugs Nick always pretended to dislike._ He knows _everybody_ considers him a pathetic jerk, so Nick must fake some indifference now and then, for appearances.

He missed his friends deeply. Even Finnick’s constant rage - usually towards him - is missed: despite all the discussions and teases, the fennec had his place in Nick’s heart. And Gwen…

 _Gosh, Gwen._ Nick had not the opportunity to apologize to her properly after their break up.  They had went back to being friends - he even got her a girl! -, but it felt like if they had been apart for miles, even in the same room. He wanted to assure her that he was over it - quite - and that he wasn’t in love with her, wasn’t pinning her, and wanted to go back to their previous camaraderie. She was his first friend, they were nearly raised together. If he could, Nick would go back and would discard any feelings and thoughts of a possible romantic relationship with her, but would be her best friend, her brother instead. She did not need the load of negative feelings he carried in his shoulders to destroy their friendship.

And the fact that she liked vixens two, that was a thing. Nick wished he had noticed before any hope could culminate in his heart. Hope which seemed to jeopardize their friendship.

In the confinement, Nick’s regrets came back to him like old friends, and like old friends, Nick greeted them all. They would usually haunt the corners of his mind in the sleepless nights and solitary days, but in the confinement, they were a constant presence.

He tossed those thoughts away. What about Wild Times? Could he reopen it?

The flush of his imagination made Nick _erratic._ There was just so much boredom he could take, now that he was lost in his own mind. To accompany his lively mind, his body had to maintain a certain pace: he jumped up and down, like a crazy rabbit, laughing like an insane clown.

_The brilliant lights that provided its illumination in all shapes and colors, the sounds of happy predators in the afternoon time, the rush of the crowd, all letting go of the harsh reality of the outside world…_

Nick knew that even if he managed to leave the jail, he couldn’t reopen it. The police already knew about his illegal activities and the location of the amusement park, and Nick doubted he could _ever_ put his hands in a collar key after the events that lead him to his current situation - mentally and legally.

But in the madness that was the solitary confinement, Nick allowed himself to dream.

 

__

 

When Nick is left out of the solitary, if feels like if the universe is a broken mirror - it makes no sense, and everything he can perceive is scattered and twisted.

He is dragged out of the room the same way he was dragged in - a duo of officers interlock their arms with his, lifting him from the ground enough for his feet to wiggle above the floor - but this time, he doesn’t fight the officers that take him.

As Nick is dragged through the zoo, the magnificence of the world and its features is surreal: Nick is completely unused to stairs and large corridors and _the dark -_ did the damned fluorescent light damage for real his night vision? He couldn't know.

In their way to the midsection of the zoo, Nick was mesmerized by the insides of the building like a freak. Those colorless features that struck him as boring the first time he saw them now are beautiful and detailed. And if felt…. _Wrong_. Wrong in the most intracecal way.

The vulpine felt _detached._ As he fought his mind against its dazzled haze, his stomach - besides its emptiness - turned violently inside him. _This is not a beautiful thing. This gray is not to be honoured, not to be admired, not to be loved. This is a sick, sick, hellish place. -_ he told himself, but the horror of the solitary is such that his unused mind wins the battle, and despite how horrified Nick is with himself and those feelings, he feels _lucky to be where he is._

The officers throw him nonchalantly in the ground of his cell - it’s morning time, he noticed surprised - and his cellmates stare at him, as they remember that Nick _exists._

The same cellmates that had protested so vehemently before seemed to regard Nick with indifference. Nick had never really bonded with those mammals, but their indifference made him feel like he was an ant instead of a fox, and that he was about to be trampled by the weight of this now too big, too magnificent world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT (22/11): description and tense adjustment.


End file.
